NEW YORK—Mike Green did not cost the Washington Capitals the game on Sunday at Madison Square Garden, but he certainly did not help the cause when he cross-checked Derek Dorsett in the face and gave the New York Rangers a power play with 6:14 left in the third period of a game New York held on to win, 1-0, forcing Game 7 on Monday.

Of course, there was an excuse to be made. There always is, especially for the incidents that seem the most inexcusable.

"It looked like a slewfoot to me," Capitals coach Adam Oates said. "That's why Mike reacted. Mike's not that type of player. You watch it, and to me, it looks like a slewfoot. Very dangerous play."

See, Dorsett slewfooted Green, so Green somehow had every right to cross-check Dorsett in the face.

At some point, somebody has to explain how this makes any sense. Even if Dorsett did try to slewfoot Green -- on replays, it appeared more that Dorsett lost his footing while making a borderline check, and that was how his leg got between Green's legs -- what good does it serve Green to respond, in a game his team is losing by a goal, to respond with a stick to his aggressor's face?

Is it really going to send a message to Dorsett? Is a guy with 727 penalty minutes in 280 career games going to stop trying to skate the fine line between clean and dirty because somebody put a stick in his face? The same theory applies to all the nonsensical pushing and shoving that happens after the whistle whenever a player is near a goaltender after a save.

So, the best-case scenario for Green in that situation is that Dorsett gets a five-minute major for slewfooting, and Green takes it down to three minutes because of his retaliation. It's not as if the Capitals weren't already penalized for retaliation during the game, either, as Jack Hillen took a roughing minor in the first period for giving Ryan Callahan a pop.

Did the Rangers really play such a clean game in Game 6 that the Capitals deserved to have zero power plays? No. But that does not excuse Washington from taking an exceptionally stupid penalty at a critical point in the game.

That's what an inexcusable penalty is. It's inexcusable. It doesn't matter what the other guy did first, or if the guy who committed it is "not that type of player," or if the penalty count in the game is uneven.

And as it is, the Capitals got out of that exchange better off than they might have, because while Green's cross-check happened right in front of referee Marc Joanette, Mike Ribeiro was smooth enough to put his stick to Dorsett's skates and trip him on the way off the ice outside the view of the four officials.